Chapter 118 Bright Sanatorium The body temperature of the humans plummeted...
"Jiang Yang, why don't you reply to my messages? Why don't you reply even though you've read them!"
"miss you."
"If you can't handle it, let's fight!"
"How about it, want to follow me? I'll protect you."
"He was killed by me and my brother."
...
Where is Yuejiang?
"At the guild."
The moment the alloy doors of the Litanvi main building slid open, the conversations in the lobby on the first floor came to an abrupt halt, like a cassette tape being abruptly cut off.
"Lord Hoshino is back," the person wearing the beast-head mask murmured, bowing deeply. If you listened closely, his voice trembled like a withered leaf in the autumn wind.
Hoshino didn't respond and walked straight to the elevator deep in the corridor. He and Tsukie's residence was on the top floor of the main building.
The heels of the Doc Martens pounded the ground, each step feeling like a tap on everyone's tense nerves, even making the breathing around them slow down.
There's an unwritten rule in Litanvi: stay away from Hoshino.
Everyone knows that Yuejiang's gloom is like a deep pool, and even in its coldest state, there are traces to follow. But Hoshino is a storm that rages indiscriminately. You can never grasp his logic. All you know is that the price of the slightest carelessness is a crushed wrist and a broken collarbone.
However, precisely because of this, the guild, which had been plagued by constant strife and chaos for three generations since its founding in Nanke, was completely tamed and subdued by the iron-fisted rule of the twin brothers.
The elevator doors opened, and the two girls wearing rabbit-head masks, who had been chatting and laughing, fell silent the moment they saw Hoshino. They stammered, "Hoshino... Master..."
Hoshino hated that the people in the guild always looked so fearful.
Since they have no resilience, what kind of demon are they? They might as well be dead. He wouldn't mind sending them on their way.
However, he was in a good mood today.
After being released from the Un Entertainment trial, I sent a message to Jiang Yang, but she didn't reply.
So he went into the tower early in the morning and shamelessly followed Nan Ke around.
This earned him many curses from Nan Ke, who called him "a leech".
He replied matter-of-factly, "So what?"
"Aren't you going down?"
Hoshino stared at the two rabbit heads with a sinister look, stomped his Martin boot forward, and suddenly yelled, "Ah!"
The snarling, bared teeth made the rabbit tremble, stammering, "Down...down..."
The rabbits rushed out immediately.
A DJ track was playing in the elevator, and Hoshino stood in the middle of the car, swaying slightly to the rhythm of the music.
Before the door closed, he whistled and added, "Don't let me see a single rabbit in the main building for the next month."
There are no other restrictions inside Litanvi, except for one thing: you must wear a mask when entering or leaving the main building.
The smooth elevator car reflected Hoshino's smug face.
He pursed his lips, the corners of his mouth slowly falling back, replaced by a sense of loss. "Boring."
The entire bathroom was filled with sweltering steam.
A thin mist covered the mirror, faintly revealing a boy in the bathroom with his neck tilted back and hot water splashing on his body.
The boy pressed the shower switch, and a slender wrist stretched out from the misty haze. Just as the water stopped, the boy pulled the bathrobe off the rack and wrapped it completely inside.
He loosely tied the belt of his bathrobe around his waist and walked barefoot back to the pool.
The stray hairs on his forehead were still dripping water. He raised his hand, and his fingertips first touched something cool and wet. He rubbed his fingertips vigorously.
The boy's face gradually became clearer.
He spread his fingers and pressed them against the mirror, leaning forward until his lower abdomen was against the edge of the pool before stopping, his face almost touching the mirror.
He turned his hand over, bent the knuckle of his index finger, and gently tapped the mirror surface.
The frequency of the mirror's tremors gradually overlapped with the suppressed heartbeat inside the main building, and the outward violence slowly transformed into an inward gloom.
A straight nose, a slight indentation in the center of the lower lip, and even the faint mole at the corner of the left eye is perfectly accurate.
It is Yuejiang.
Yuejiang's eyes in the mirror were as cold as ice.
Their eyes met, and he frowned slightly, as if he was assessing something.
Hoshino stared at the shadow, then suddenly clenched his fist and slammed it into the mirror.
In the same posture, Yuejiang in the mirror moved in sync, their fists colliding and cracks spreading, shattering the face so that it was impossible to tell whose face it was.
As the blood droplets slid down, the boy chuckled.
He knew exactly who he was.
After leaving Un Entertainment, Yuejiang often thought about that huge melting pot.
He couldn't face it.
He faced the red thread that connected only his soul and the furnace.
They dared not admit it.
He admitted that Hoshino only existed in his imagination during the trial.
No one knew that only during the trial were he and Hoshino truly two different people.
Occasionally, on days when he is not in the trial, he would be active in the guild and the tower as Hoshino. The believers feared him, but they were even more terrified of "him".
He switches between his two identities with ease.
He thought he would continue to pretend like this forever.
But after emerging from the furnace, and spending over thirty long days in that seemingly endless space, a profound emptiness and confusion began to erode his spirit.
Undeniably, over the years he had programmed Hoshino into a perfect program, but the signal from the tower in space was sometimes strong and sometimes weak, and Hoshino, who was originally able to endlessly argue and bicker with him and whose vitality was particularly strong, began to crash from time to time.
His human body temperature plummeted, and he embraced the lifeless...corpse.
No, the explosion left Hoshino without even a body.
"Okay, okay, I'm bored, I'm going crazy!"
The mechanical, monotone voice, mixed with the cassette tape's rhythm affected by the signal, sounded particularly eerie in the pitch-black space. The next second, Hoshino tilted his head, rested his chin on Hoshino's shoulder, and whispered viciously in his ear, "If you can't take it, just die. You kill me, I'll kill you."
"good."
They came out.
When I crawled out of the hole, I saw not only Jiang Yang and Ji Yang, but also... my teacher.
"Teacher...please say something to me."
"I don't know what to do..."
The teacher said, "Yuejiang, just be yourself."
"Yuejiang, be yourself."
Shouldn't he face reality...?
So, after completing the contract for renting the arena from Nanke, Yuejiang entered the trial alone.
He wanted to get used to being alone, but he failed.
He held the Devil card in his hand, but stared at the pair of resurrected, overjoyed puppet brothers in the distance, unable to bring himself to strike.
His reason vanished, and he fled in panic.
[Congratulations to player Yuejiang for successfully unlocking - Happy Ending]
[Achievement Completed - The Doll's Redemption]
After the trial, the first thing Yuejiang did was to put the devil card to the neck of Wu Yibai, the agent of the Tower.
Yuejiang coldly questioned, "Are you plotting against me?"
“It’s not about scheming; I’m just proving to you that you still have a chance.”
"Transaction details," Yuejiang stated directly.
“Litanvi previously filmed a trial called the Sanatorium of Light. I need you to recruit a group of players to participate in this trial.”
"Can."
But Yuejiang didn't expect that Jiang Yang would also come in.
On January 7th, the first day at the Bright Sanatorium, Yuejiang, following Wu Yibai's instructions, sent all the players who were supposed to work as caregivers at the sanatorium into the treatment room to change their identities. Just as he finished changing into his caregiver uniform, the doorbell of the sanatorium was rung.
"Hello, I'm Xiaolan, a tour guide from the 'Go Where You Want' tour group. Today, I'm taking tourists to see the Crazy Circus show. On the way, the bus broke down. I was wondering if we could check into a sanatorium first and then leave once the bus is fixed."
Bus...
Wu Yibai: "Let them in."
Taking advantage of the situation, Yuejiang said, "Tell me what you're going to do."
Xiao Lan patiently stood at the door waiting for Yue Jiang's reply, while Yue Jiang patiently looked at the panel, waiting for Wu Yibai's answer.
Finally, Wu Yibai's message popped up: "I want to move a few of the nursing home's caregivers out."
"The caregiver's status was only changed after the trial began. Is it legal for you to send patients from a nursing home to a no-man's-land?"
Yuejiang cautioned, "Don't try to deceive me, or this transaction may be terminated at any time."
Wu Yibai: "I'm sending them back through compliant channels."
Yuejiang: "But your behavior is not in accordance with regulations."
"Okay, to be honest, they will replace some players' identities and return to the Borderlands as players."
Wu Yibai's messages kept popping up, including "your brother, Hoshino".
The cold words convey both deterrence and warning.
"Is Hoshino also at the sanatorium?"
Wu Yibai did not reply to this message.
Jiang Yang's symptoms after entering the sanatorium were Alzheimer's disease. After losing his memory, he became so weak and docile that he looked like a porcelain doll.
To prevent Jiang Yang from being replaced, Yue Jiang ultimately chose to become Jiang Yang's caregiver.
Little did she expect that the sexual impulse control disorder she had chosen to save herself trouble would become even more embarrassing after meeting Jiang Yang.
What's even more frustrating is that he trespassed on the tower, and he was monitored during this trial.
The person monitoring him is 008. Wu Yibai said, "Don't let the bug fix department find out about your deal with me."
Therefore, he used tricks to deliberately avoid being chased by 008.
However, when facing Jiang Yang, she fell ill and was unavoidably pinned down in front of the bathroom sink by 008.
The utility knife fell to the ground, and 008 grabbed his wrist and pressed it against the mirror.
008 forced him to confront the lustful version of himself in the mirror, but his gaze was involuntarily drawn to their intertwined wrists.
Their wrists were bandaged.
He couldn't help but ask, "Who exactly are you, 008?"
The thin string of the mask fell onto his face. He tried to look up, but a hand pressed against his forehead, blocking his view.
008 said, "Yuejiang, don't look back."
On January 9th, the third day after entering the Guangming Sanatorium, Yuejiang received a new message on her panel.
[Note: The number of players in this trial has increased by 2.]
[New player information: Hoshino, Jiyang]
[Player Hoshino has been detected entering the Judgment Realm]
[You can switch identities after manually activating a talent card]
If he couldn't find him, Hoshino wouldn't stay calm. Tsukie was just waiting for Hoshino to walk into her trap in the Dark Zone Neurotherapy Room.
Sure enough, not long after.
[Will they switch identities with Hoshino?]
【yes】
Yuejiang stood at the top of the stairs on the second floor and immediately saw Jiang Yang approaching him.
Without hesitation, he took Jiang Yang upstairs, confident that with Jiang Yang there, Ji Yang would soon appear as well.
He wanted to confirm some information with Ji Yang.
"Have you found Yuejiang?"
In the restaurant, Ji Yang asked casually, as if two old friends were chatting idly over breakfast.
Yuejiang replied without changing her expression, "No."
His impatient tone made it seem like he was about to put his legs up on the table.
Why didn't I see you yesterday?
Yuejiang took the initiative and returned the questions Jiang Yang had used to question him to Jiyang.
He was testing the waters, and he could sense that Ji Yang was testing the waters as well.
Hoshino isn't the type to keep his composure, so he doesn't need to be too careful in front of Ji Yang.
"You went to court yesterday?"
Ji Yang countered, a hint of confusion appearing on his usually calm face. "But I came today."
Yuejiang clicked his tongue lightly: "That's interesting. Did they smuggle themselves in? That wouldn't be good for Mouguang."
“No,” Ji Yang denied immediately: “I have connections.”
The overly frank words almost made Yuejiang lose her composure.
Ji Yang pressed his advantage: "But you, if I remember correctly, the trial was held the day before yesterday, and you only arrived yesterday. You didn't pull any strings, did you?"
Due to the rules of the trial, all players will be automatically assigned to the trial starting on January 8th.
The only people who knew the true date of the trial, besides Yuejiang, were 007 and 008, who were responsible for monitoring the trial.
So that's how it is...
Yuejiang began to make plans in her mind.
Wu Yibai said that Xingye can replace other players and return to the No Man's Land.
He thought of a deeper question: if Judges 007 and 008 correspond to Ji Yang and Xing Ye, then what can replace the player and return to the No Man's Land—the "patients" of the Bright Sanatorium, or the "judges" who exist within the patients?
Yuejiang didn't know much about the Judges, but he remembered that the identities of player and judge coexisted.
Based on the limited information available, the only person who could replace a player is a judge who doesn't have a player identity.
What exactly does Wu Yibai want to do...?
In fact, Wu Yibai had to do something because he couldn't do anything else.
As Deyue's power in the tower grew, several judges he had secretly placed in the bug-fixing area were killed one after another.
Danger.
Therefore, Wu Yibai was willing to devoutly dedicate all the conspiracies and schemes to his tower.
[Warning! Warning!]
Yuejiang, who was in the treatment room, suddenly received this message.
He twisted his wrist, breaking free of the restraints he had secured to the chair, then flicked a button on his helmet. The chains that had fallen from the ceiling slowly retracted, and the helmet detached from his head along with them.
Sweat soaked his hair, and he sat there for a while to recover.
The images during treatment were sometimes clear and sometimes blurry, but that memory gradually disappeared from my mind after the treatment stopped.
Just like the name of this treatment room, "Memory Shattering Skull," he didn't even have a chance to feel sorry for Jiang Yang.
[Warning to player: Hoshino has entered the archives]
The appearance of the bus blurred the lines between the trials of "Bright Sanatorium" and "Crazy Circus".
Wu Yibai said that there were disagreements within the Tower regarding the handling of the Bright Sanatorium. After discussion, it was decided to delegate the trial authority to the union holding the trial, Litanwei. In other words, the authority fell into Yuejiang's hands.
Maintaining the trial proceedings was not Yuejiang's objective.
Yuejiang didn't put too much effort into the players; she simply issued the first task to them according to the sanatorium's existing rules.
Find your medical records.
It should be noted that after realizing Wu Yibai's intentions...
Under the new rules, Yuejiang realized that the areas opened first were all in favor of the "judges".
The archives were not within this area, so he wasn't worried that players would find them too early.
Unexpectedly, before the evening event ended, Munasher conveyed this message to the players.
In particular, Munasher's cards contain clues about the archives.
Munashe is not a simple NPC.
Yuejiang handed the message to Wu Yibai, who replied, "Ignore it, stall for time, wait for the car."
Tsk.
The archives are located on the second basement floor of Building 2.
A pale blue flame suddenly shot up from one of the cabinets.
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